Denouement
by great gospel
Summary: She says your name as if she's been saying it for lifetimes. [ichiruki; reincarnation fic]
**Word Count** : 2,182

 **Timeline/Spoilers** : multiple alternate universes w/ some of the canon one; no spoilers

 **Summary** : She says your name as if she's been saying it for lifetimes. [ichiruki; reincarnation fic]

 **Notes** : This was based on a variation of the original poem "25 Lives" (by Tongari) done by ichi-go on tumblr. Link: ich-go . tumblr post/108721377135/inspired-by-x

Tbh, this is more of an au type thing than a reincarnation type thing. Oh, well. Stanzas from the poem don't exactly line up with the content, but they were more of inspiration than actual prompts that I followed.

Honestly just posting this because I'm tired of messing with it lmao.

* * *

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* * *

 _The very first time I remember you, your eyes are black, and we don't know each other at all.  
The next time, your eyes are indigo, and we do.  
After a while I give up trying to guess if the colour of your eyes means anything, because even when you don't exist, I'm always in love with you._

* * *

 _Shinigami_ , you scoff inwardly, still disbelieving. Sure, you and your family could communicate with ghosts, but this was different!

People dying and leaving parts of themselves behind at their favourite haunts or when they have unfinished business, that you can buy. But the idea of an entire afterworld built on a complex military-political scheme with hundreds of grim reapers cloaked in kimono ushering pure souls over to the other side while vanquishing ones that have sinned? Come _on_.

And there she goes screeching at you again. She's got too much fight in her for someone of such small stature, but she's already proven her battle prowess to you once before, much as you hate to admit it. You'd settle for glaring at one another once more, but there's a gleam in her vibrant, violet eyes that's achingly familiar. You flinch away involuntarily.

* * *

 _I remember most fondly those lifetimes where we get to grow up together, when you share your secrets and sorrows and hiding places with me.  
I remember playing along with your bad ideas, before you grow up and realize they're bad ideas.  
(And in our times together, there have been many, many bad ideas.)_ _  
_

* * *

[From: Strawberry-kun]  
[2:17 AM]  
Why exactly do u need chloroform at 2am?

[From: rukia]  
[2:18 AM]  
No time for questions!

[From: Strawberry-kun]  
[2:20 AM]  
…and why do you think i can get you chloroform at 2am?

[From: Strawberry-kun]  
[2:21 AM]  
You're planning on doing something stupid, aren't u?

[From: rukia]  
[2:21 AM]  
Come on, Ichigo. We both know you have friends in low places. ;)

[From: Strawberry-kun]  
[2:22 AM]  
I literally hate you

[From: Strawberry-kun]  
[2:38 AM]  
…fine, i can get u the stuff

[From: rukia]  
[2:39 AM]  
:D

* * *

 _When we meet as adults you're always much more discerning. I don't blame you.  
Yet, always, you forgive me, as if you understand what's going on, and you're making up for all the lifetimes in which one of us doesn't exist, and the ones where we, just barely, never meet._

* * *

She wakes up in a cold sweat for the sixth night in a row and decides that enough is enough. Grudgingly shoving her covers out of the way, she makes her way into the study. She had dreamt of him again. Upon waking, the details always escape her, but the image of those striking, hazel eyes stays imprinted in her mind.

She has no inkling of where to begin.

The following night, as if in response to her sudden determination, the dreams stop coming. Rukia is beyond frustrated.

Weeks pass by. She doesn't think of the mystery boy again for some time. Though there's a niggling feeling in the back of her thoughts, it's out of sight, out of mind, she supposes. It's not as if she has any information to go off of, anyway. Nothing but those stupid, hazel eyes, and that stupid, orange hair—

Orange hair?

And suddenly the picture of him is clear in her mind again. It's not much, but it's a start.

She scours through old yearbooks with no luck, scrolls through her Facebook friends' profiles to no avail. At times, she nearly screeches in exasperation, but that would be unbecoming of a lady. Still, she can't help but think how this is so typical of that stupid Ichigo to drive her up the wall like this. Rukia's certain he takes some sort of sick pleasure out of her irritation.

Wait.

Ichigo.

And she's back at it.

It's not an obsession, she swears up and down. She just wants that stupid strawberry-haired freak out of her head. She just wants to know why he keeps showing up and what it's got to do with her. Honestly, what business does some angry-looking punk dressed like he's about to start spouting _Bushido_ have to do with her dreams? It's not a daily thing, but if she happens across a newspaper or magazine, you can be sure she's scouring the pages for a familiar face.

He falls back into her life in the most unexpected of ways. She had been perusing her brother's immense library when she happened upon an old newspaper clipping, saved from the exact date of her birth. Hisana had probably tucked it away as a memento; she was sentimental like that.

Then, something on page twelve caught her eye.

"Kurosaki Ichigo," the headline read. "Perished in a tragic vehicular collision at age 19. Aspiring med student with promising future ahead. Saved a young girl's life by pushing her out of the way. [Name omitted out of respect for the family's privacy.] He will be missed."

Lifespans worth of memories ( _dreams_ , Rukia reminded herself, _just dreams_ ) and all the newspapers could afford him were three scraps of line in an inch by inch square at the bottom corner of the obituaries page?

* * *

 _I hate those. I prefer the ones in which you kill me.  
But when all's said and done, I'd surrender to you in other ways._

* * *

"Maybe if we met before the apocalypse, I could have loved you properly," she whispers to him in the dead of the night, as they've huddled together for warmth in the open air. He feel Yuzu's head in his lap start to stir. Gently, he runs his hand across her hair until she stills once more. Turning slightly, he locks eyes with Rukia.

He doesn't dare speak. What words can he offer her when the world's gone to shit, and everything around them is falling apart? But that shared look between them conveys everything. She's always been able to read him so easily.

Always. They've been on the run together for just a few weeks (maybe months now?), but it feels like there's _always_ been an always with her. And yes, he's sure he's not just high off the adrenaline of running from zombies.

A zombie outbreak. How cliché, right? At least he thought so. Not that he had time to grouch about the unoriginality of the universe when he was fighting for his and his sisters' (and now Rukia's) lives.

He'd awoken to screams in the middle of the night that now seems like years ago. Bolting up out of bed, he charged first the girls' room. He remembers Karin curled protectively around Yuzu, who had tears in her eyes. "Ichi-nii, what's going on?"

"Stay here," he had ordered.

He rushed outside with only a baseball bat in hand, recklessly, foolishly. He spotted the dark outline if some creature, slowly creeping closer, with blood dripping from every orifice. He warned it to stay back. Suddenly, as if noticing him for the first time, its head flicked up to meet his eyes. It charged. He closed your eyes ("first mistake, kid"), prepared to swing, when—

"Fool!"

And then she appeared, in all her 4'8½" glory, and saving his ass before they'd exchanged three words. Shoving him out of the way, she barely escaped a swipe from the creature. Then, expertly, she pulled out a pistol and struck a clear shot to the head, finally silencing the beast. A speck of blood landed on her perfect, porcelain cheek.

She grabbed his hand then, and yelled, "Run!"

"My sisters!" he barely stammered out.

"Hurry!"

Belatedly, he realized that it had been the neighbor, Yamada.

His father, a doctor at the city hospital, was working the graveyard shift that night. He scrawled him a quick note left on the kitchen counter. But their phones all died out weeks ago, and they'd stayed away from cities. They never did hear back from him.

Rukia has been with them ever since. Her selflessness has saved his hide more times than he can count – ever since that first meeting that didn't feel like the first. She's the reason his sisters are alive today, and he can never stop repaying her for that.

He leans in and presses his lips to her forehead and lingers there, uncharacteristically gentle. In the morning, they'll be on the run once more, so they both savour this.

He wakes up to shouts and Karin shaking him roughly. It's not even dawn, but he won't complain about the lack of sleep.

The group hasn't made close contact with _them_ in some time, but their luck was bound to run out eventually. He quickly urges Karin up a tree, and turns to see Rukia already fighting it off. She's wielding a baseball bat in front of her, posed like a katana, and for a split second, he sees an image of her clad in a black kimono, in the very same position, clutching an elegant sword.

Rukia doesn't seem to be having any trouble fending off the creature on her own, so he makes to grab Yuzu and send her up with Karin.

"Ichi-nii!" she shrieks, pointing over his shoulder.

It happens too fast. A runner. None of them saw it coming. Rukia was too preoccupied with its friend, and Ichigo with his sisters. The dark and the grogginess caught them all unawares. There's no time to run or reach for a weapon, he realizes. He shoves Yuzu behind him, and spreads his arms wide, making himself the biggest target. He shuts his eyes tight ( _"first mistake, kid"_ ), but it never comes.

"You always were a self-sacrificing piece of shit." There's that 'always' again. He doesn't scoff and sarcastically reply that she's one to talk, not when she's dying in his arms. Rukia had leapt in front of him at the last possible second. She'd shot a hole through its head, but not before it had burrowed its teeth in her neck.

She's bleeding out. Yuzu has tears streaming down her cheeks, and Karin leaps from some branch, eyes wide and disbelieving. He wonders if he should count it as a blessing that she's simply dying and not being changed. That monster had struck a major vein.

It doesn't mean much to him when all he wants more time and less of her blood on his skin.

* * *

 _Even though each time, I know I'll see you again, I always wonder is this the last time? Is that really you? And what if you're perfectly happy without me?_

* * *

"Get off of me, you cretin!"

The giant orange oaf jumps up unceremoniously, somehow just as astonished as she is.

He attempts to assuage the warm blush creeping across his features with a scowl, as he averts his eyes and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. "You're in my spot," he says, as if that explains it all.

"This entire restaurant is cleared out, and you decide to take the one booth already inhabited?!" she balks incredulously.

"I didn't expect anyone to be in my spot." She heard him the first time. This guy was like a one trick pony. Or more like a stubborn mule that needed a good kick in the hindquarters.

"You didn't see me?! Or rather, you just sat on me..." There's no real bite behind her words at this point, she's too stunned at how lax he's being about this strange encounter to expend energy on being angry.

He merely grunts, and slides into the opposite side of the booth.

Rukia's eyebrow twitches. The nerve of him...

The waitress arrives shortly, not even batting at eye at this awkward pair – a bright-haired punk soaked to the bone with bandages strewn all over and a daintily dressed young woman with a parasol in tow who doesn't even clear five feet. But it's the early morning hours of her graveyard shift, and she's too tired to care. Besides, she's seen weirder people stroll in.

"The usual for you, hon?" she motions to the oaf. He nods.

She turns to Rukia, who just says, "I'll take whatever he's having." The petite woman doesn't miss the slight eyebrow raise from the young man in front of her. No matter how disinterested he tries to appear, she can tell it's an act. She's always been good at reading people's intentions like that. She's had to be, to get by.

With not another word between the three of them, the waitress saunters off to turn in their orders.

Rukia decides to break the silence, "So, you come here often?"

He blinks.

"That was totally not a come-on," she deadpans, albeit somewhat awkwardly.

"Ah," he replies.

What was with this guy? He could plant his ass on her lap without a second thought but was incapable of maintaining a simple conversation? "I just meant that you're clearly a regular here."

He nods.

The conversation comes to a halt after that. Not that this embarrassing display of linguistic communication, or lack thereof, could even be termed such. She turns to watch the droplets race down the glass pane of the window. Eventually, the waitress returns with two platters of short stack pancakes, as well as two glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice.

The uncommunicative lifeform before her immediately begins scarfing down food, like a man starved. Rukia balks. There are a couple of things wrong with this picture. First of all, who has buttermilk pancakes with orange juice? The warm and sugary sweet fulfillment of pancakes and the tangy citrus of OJ just don't mesh. It's a damn near crime! Second of all...

"Who frequents a run-down diner at the edge of town for pancakes and orange juice at 2 in the morning on a school night?" she can't keep from blurting out.

A new brand of silence envelopes the pair. Rukia begins toying her fork around her food, taking tentative bites. (It's delicious, she'll give him that.) She is honestly just curious at this point, about the enigma of a young man seated before her.

He lifts his head up slowly, looks her directly in the eye, and, "I hate the rain," he states simply, as if by way of explanation.

She blinks. A few more seconds of silence.

"...Yea. Me, too, kid. Me, too."

* * *

 _Ah, but I don't blame you; I'll never burn as brilliantly as you. It's only fair  
that I should be the one to chase you across nine, twenty-seven, a hundred and one lifetimes until I find the one where you'll return to me._

* * *

She's dead, but _oh so alive_ , and she says your name as if she's been saying it for lifetimes. What more could you ask for?

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* * *

 **Notes** : Prompts/scenarios used in order (with the tumblr user credits):

1\. canon

2\. "Why exactly do you need chloroform at 2am?" (toxixpumpkin)

3\. You keep having strange dreams that turn out to be us in a past life and you're determined to find me again but in this life I'm already dead (toxixpumpkin)

4\. 'Maybe if we met before the apocalypse I could have loved you properly.' AU (crankgally)

5\. otp: wouldn't it be cool if this was an alternate universe and you met at a diner at like 2 am while it was raining (jaclcfrost)

6\. canon

I apologize if section four sounds awkward. It was the first piece of this that I wrote, when I originally wanted everything in second person for Ichigo because I envisioned the poem from his POV. But then I started on my next portion, which I wrote in third person, and I decided that second was too limiting for what I was trying to do with this story. And I didn't want to awkwardly have one still in second person. But I really liked the original flow of it, so I kind of just changed the pronouns…

Also, lots of easter eggs/deliberate parallels from their original meeting in the manga. If you can find them all, you win my eternal love and devotion (…or I'll write you a giftfic or something lol).

Please review! Let me know which part was your favourite! :)


End file.
